


slay your demons while you're awake (they won't be there to haunt you in your sleep)

by sunsetsofeternity (lets_fangirl)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universes, Angst, Character Death, Fluff, Implied Relationships, Manpain, SO MUCH MAN PAIN, again - unnecessary amounts really, unnecessary amounts really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lets_fangirl/pseuds/sunsetsofeternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>gavin free is a superhero. gavin free is a criminal. gavin free is alive. or is he?<br/>—— he drifts off from this life, and into the next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	slay your demons while you're awake (they won't be there to haunt you in your sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes at the end. Proceed if you'd like.

_i. how about this / we stop denying our hunger / we call ourselves holy_

In one life, Gavin is a superhero.

The idea is familiar and although he trips over his own feet more than any Stan Lee creation would, it is an easy life for him to live. It starts off as a joke – fiddling with powers he’d had since birth, but never thought to do anything with; time bubbles and disarming grins and more than he ever could have imagined.

Ray all-but tumbles into his life, and stays there. It’s all a blur, really, but it was almost as if one day they were Ray and Gavin, best friends and flatmates, and the next they were _X-Ray and Vav_ , protectors of justice, crushers of crime, the hope for all those in need – etcetera, etcetera.

It’s all too much of a blur, even the Mad King and Lindsay and the Corpirate and Gavin hates it, hates it all, but never asks Ray about it because no matter how much they believe in each other, Ray won’t hesitate to bring a stop to their little superhero show if Gavin is falling apart. At the end of the day, their priority is each other (and maybe Lindsay), and neither are willing to sacrifice the other for a town that doesn’t give a shit about them.

He’s not falling apart, though. He’s not.

Even though the Mad King has a familiar laugh that makes him want to smile just as much as it makes him want to cower in the corner with fear; even though every time he sees Lindsay, he thinks there should be someone next to her – with red, curly hair and brown _brown brown_ eyes; even though every time he sees the Corpirate he thinks of home and family and bright blue eyes.

He’s not falling apart.

Gavin knows he’s fine. His head is just a little messed up; it’s to be expected, he thinks, with his sleeping schedule fucked all the way to hell and he’s just so _worried_ that Ray isn’t going to be able to save himself if Gavin fucks up and gets stuck in his own time bubble.

“You all right, Vav?” Ray will ask every so often between games of Halo, and although he sounds unconcerned, Gavin knows if he turns to look at his best friend, he will find nothing but concern and worry and fondness in Ray’s dark hues, and he already feels guilty enough about not telling Ray about his fucked up brain.

So Gavin will smile his disarming grin, “Of course I am, silly little X-Ray!” and start the next game.

(They both pretend not to notice Gavin's less-than-stellar performance in the next few games.)

.//.

“I always had a soft spot for y’, Vav. Shame it had to come this, ain’t it?”

Gavin— or Vav, rather, feels strangely defeated. X-Ray is nowhere to be seen, and Vav is alone in a room with their two biggest foes. The Corpirate is grinning at him, whilst the Mad King only stares at the man donned in bright blue spandex with a lazy smile and crazed eyes.

If it were any other situation, Vav would be frantically searching for his partner-in-crime. Now, though, Vav would rather X-Ray be holed up with Lindsay in their apartment and waiting for Vav to find his way home – they were both exhausted, dealing with only the Mad King, and Vav knows that even the two of them together would not be able to handle the Corpirate.

On a good day? Of course. The Corpirate may be formidable, but together, X-Ray and Vav are practically unstoppable – but they’re still very much _only human_ , and both have long since hit their breaking point.

If X-Ray and Vav were going down, Vav would much rather it if he were the one staying down.

“I s’pose, y’ mingy little pisspot.” Gavin says, his easy confidence gone and in it’s place, the reminder of the normal human he had once been. For a moment, Gavin wishes that Vav had never existed – that he was at home playing Halo or COD or Peggle with his best friend and best gal; but it was always coming to this, and Gavin supposes that if he has to die, he’s glad he’ll die a heroic death.

The Corpirate’s grin grows, and his eyes gleam in a way Gavin finds strangely familiar. Not for the first time, Gavin looks into the eyes of quite possibly his arch nemesis and thinks of the man as _family_. “Ah, Vav. I would’ve liked to tell ya’ little buddy you’d fought until the end, but I can’t now, can I?”

The Mad King laughs then, full and hysterical, and Gavin allows himself to smile. He can’t shake the feeling that someone is missing; beyond Ray and Lindsay, and he thinks of a great beard and kind eyes, belonging to a man who should be standing between the Corpirate and the Mad King.

Gavin shakes his head at the thought.

“Get it over with, would you? Bit bored with this whole thing, m’self.” It’s a strange banter between the three, mostly Gavin and the Corpirate, but it’s almost familiar – and in a way, Gavin finds it almost comforting. It’s certainly easier to argue back and forth with Ray and Lindsay, but Gavin’s never been one for easy – and even then, _this is his bloody death bed_ ; if Ray and Lindsay were available for banter, Gavin would be getting them the hell out.

He can deal with dying, sure; but no part of him could handle having both Lindsay and Ray witness his death. Gavin’s priority may be Ray, but the three of them have gotten to the point where Gavin freely admits his protectiveness over Lindsay, despite her ability to very much take care of herself.

He can’t have them watch him die.

.//.

“What th—? Shit, _shit_ — Lindsay! Get the fucking first aid kit. Shit, Gav, c’mere; what the – oh God, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry, shit— _shit_ , you’re gonna be okay, Vav, okay; we’ll fix you up.”

Before Gavin can properly realize what’s happening, Ray has him laying down on the couch – he feels oddly cold without the arm of his best friend wound around his shoulders, but the couch is warm, and he has no doubts that only moments before Ray and Lindsay were lain out across it only moments before, maybe invested in a game of Minecraft or Halo as they waited for Gavin to find his way home.

They probably weren’t expecting this.

Gavin desperately wants to say something; to tell Ray that it’s _okay_ , that he’s okay with dying – but he can feel the blood and bile rising in his throat, and Gavin knows himself well enough to know that if he opens his mouth, there is going to be any ugly stain on the carpet that they’re never going to be able to get out.

“Vav, hey— look at me, c’mon, talk to me.”

“Ray…” Lindsay’s whisper is so quiet that Gavin barely catches it, but he does; and he knows that whatever she’s found isn’t good. His torso is suddenly very cold, and Gavin realizes that she’s ripped the top half off of his suit. The job was already half-done, thanks to the Mad King, but Gavin hadn’t really expected her to finish off what the other man had started. Nonetheless, Gavin knows what she’s found, and understands that she knows there’s no way he’s going to survive.

Both of his friends are quiet, but Gavin wants nothing more for them both to start talking, if only to fill the dreadful silence that has settled in the once lively apartment. Somehow, Gavin summons the energy to reach out and grope around blindly for Ray’s hand – he doesn’t find it, but Ray finds his and Ray’s fingers entwine with Gavin’s considerably larger ones. The gesture is familiar, and Gavin finds himself somewhat comforted.

“Look at me, Gavin,” Ray says at last, voice quiet in a way Gavin hasn’t heard since the first night Gavin had come home injured – blindly, Gavin yearns for those days; when their biggest worry was whether or not they were going to leave a rip in the costumes Lindsay had hesitantly gave them soon after they’d all first met.

Gavin shifts his gaze from the off-white roof to Ray and by extension, Lindsay. Both are crouched by his side, but only Ray is looking back at him; Lindsay is busy inspecting the several wounds decorating his almost abs, and Gavin already knows she isn’t going to like what she finds. The Mad King is thorough; and he wouldn’t have left Gavin on the doorstep to his and Ray’s apartment if there was any chance Gavin was going to survive.

Ray tries to smile, but it looks awful and wrong – Gavin wonders when his friend aged twenty years, because the last time they’d been on this couch, he’d looked so much _younger_ ; happier, even. But he’s trying, and Gavin appreciates it. “Hey, asshole. You tryin’ to die on me?”

Lindsay laughs softly, and although the sound is hollow, it makes Gavin smile.

He holds on for a while, listening to Ray and Lindsay babble on nonsensically about anything and everything; they recount stories from the past three years, and although the occasion is sombre, they’re all smiling as they delve into their shared past.

Gavin thinks he falls asleep at some point, because he can hear Ray’s voice, thick with tears, pleading with him to just, “ _wake the fuck up, Gav. I— **we** need you. Wake up for me, c’mon. X-Ray and Vav, am I right?_ ”

(Although he tries with all his might, Gavin can’t make himself wake up.)

* * *

_ii. i will have you, beast and all, monster eyes and bloody mouth_

In another life, Gavin is a criminal.

Just like everybody else, he does have to work his way up from the bottom. At sixteen, Gavin starts pickpocketing. It’s almost as if he’s made for the craft – he’s quick and agile, despite his clumsiness, and he’s unassuming enough that people belatedly suspect him if they find their pocket’s empty before he’s vacated the scene.

At least, until Joel Heyman comes along.

Gavin’s nearing his eighteenth birthday when he steals from Joel Heyman, and if anything, it’s his last hurrah. The future is around the corner, and Gavin would rather not land his ass in jail. Heyman’s attention is on the window to a bank, where there are several figures flashing that Gavin doesn’t care to understand; in any case, Gavin’s attention is focused on the wallet sticking out of the man’s back pocket.

It’d be easy, Gavin knows. It’s always easy. He never takes any unnecessary risks – whether it be out of fear of his actions getting back to his parents or just not wanting to face the music, Gavin is careful. Methodical, even. Two things that, in normal circumstances, Gavin would never describe himself as.

So, Gavin does what he is meant to do best – he draws up his hood and takes away anything distinctly distinctive about himself, even his eyesore of a nose. To anyone else, he looks like a normal student on their way home from classes, which is exactly what he is supposed to be.

Somewhere along the way, then, Gavin supposes he got a little lost.

Heyman is still wonderfully oblivious as Gavin nears, and stays so up until the very moment Gavin’s fingers close around the leather of his wallet. Without diverting his gaze, Heyman’s fingers wrap around Gavin’s wrist, and his frown lifts up into something that almost resembles a smile. Gavin, on the other hand, stills in his movements, sharp green eyes zeroing in on where Heyman is grasping his wrist.

“These stocks are pretty shitty,” Joel says after a moment, and Gavin swallows. The man sounds as if he isn’t speaking to a kid who tried to rob him; instead to a peer, about something as trivial as the weather, or hell, even gold stocks. “Don’t you agree?”

Gavin looks up from his own wrist, looking into Heyman’s ready gaze. “I wouldn’t know,” Gavin answers, licking his lips absentmindedly. Heyman follows the movement intently with his own brown eyes, and Gavin realizes he’s definitely miscalculated the situation – whoever this guy is, he's smarter than Gavin's usual prey. “Look, I’m really sorr—“

Joel laughs then, his smile brilliant in it’s quality. “Don’t mention it. You almost had me, kid. What’s your name?”

“I— bloody hell, what ‘ave I got to lose?” Gavin sighs, but he almost smiles when the pressure on his wrist lets up. “Gavin. You get almost pickpocketed often?”

The older man looks back at the gold stocks with a disgruntled expression, before resolutely turning away and facing Gavin. “I live in Achievement City, Gavin. Pickpocketing is _child’s play_ over there. Must say, you are much better than the kids prowling the streets in that shithole. You been doin’ this long?”

Gavin is nearly surprised at the words of the stranger, but he does know he’s good at what he does – he wouldn’t have gone so long without being noticed if he wasn’t. Gavin shrugs after a few beats, reaching up to lower his hood. “Two years, I’d suppose. You’re from _Achievement City_? I didn’t even think that place was bloody _real_! Sounds insane, doesn’t it? That little crew—Rooster Teeth, or whatever, runs that town. Hell, some even say they run the whole of Los Santos!”

Joel’s grinning now, though the expression looks admittedly strange upon his features. “I’d say we do,” he chuckles softly at Gavin’s open-mouthed expression. “Tell me, Gav. How old are you? Eighteen? Near enough, at least.” A nod from his younger counterpart. “Give me your arm.”

.//.

Gavin spends the next six years living in both Achievement City and Oxfordshire.

Whilst in the former, he stays with Joel’s friends, Geoff and Griffon. They have a young child, as well, and Gavin fits in well with them all. Geoff’s one of the more prominent personalities of Rooster Teeth, so he spends more nights out than in, but Gavin and Griffon manage to make their own fun at home. Every so often, he’ll be invited out on a job with Geoff or Joel, and he quickly becomes known in the crew as the agile, skittish little Brit – in fact, the two heads of the company, Burnie _fuckin’_ Burns and Matt _goddamn_ Hullum, begin to try and get Gavin to join their little crew on a permanent basis.

And when he’s home in Oxfordshire, Gavin joins forces with his best friend and neighbour, Dan. Where Gavin is light feet and thinking-on-the-fly, Dan is more heavy footed with meticulous planning – they contradict each other in the most wonderful way possible, and quickly work out how to run their own little operation; although it’s nowhere near as big as Rooster Teeth’s own, it employs similar tactics, tailored only to two people instead of twenty or even thirty.

It’s not the easiest of living situations, but Gavin doesn’t have the heart to bring an end to it – he loves Achievement City just as much as he adores working with Dan, and he can’t bring himself to choose between the two lives.

On a chilly autumn’s night, though, Dan makes the decision for him.

The two of them are strewn out across the shitty couch in their shared apartment – both are breathing hard as the last of the adrenaline cycles out of their system, and they’re left staring at the pile of money on the table. Another easy job, another easy couple hundred bucks.

Dan’s the first to speak, and he’s still fighting to gain his breath back. “I have to tell y’ somethin’, B.”

Gavin cocks his head in Dan’s direction, his elated grin vanishing at the nervousness plainly displayed on his friend’s face. “What’s going on?”

“I—I think you should look into that visa Burnie’s been tryin’ to set up for you.” Dan says slowly.

In reality, Gavin could say many, _many_ things about Dan, but he would never be able to call the other man a coward. Even when he was so obviously nervous about whatever he was going to stay, he held Gavin’s stare readily, not once glancing away.

A part of him is almost envious of his best friend. “Wh— why? I thought we’d agreed that we had a good thing goin’, B. Has something happened?”

Dan’s frown deepens, and Gavin wants nothing more than for his B to smile again. “Y’remember how… after school, I did military training?”

Gavin nods, a frown of his own scarring his features.

“When you were last over in Los Santos, I… renewed my contract with the army.” At Gavin’s confused expression, Dan’s brow furrows. “Basically, I’m at their beck ‘nd call. And… last night, I got a call. They’re deploying me out in two weeks.”

.//.

Geoff and Griffon invite him to live with them full time.

It doesn’t take long to get hold of a permanent visa – Burnie apparently _knows a guy_ , and he was able to fake all the documents Gavin needs to apply for his preferred visa. It’d be hell if it weren’t for Burnie’s secret contact, and Gavin is secretly thankful to the both of them.

Living with Geoff and Griffon is easy, even familiar in a way; beyond the ninety day stints they’d endured before Gavin officially moved into their back house. Gavin even finds working with those employed by Rooster Teeth familiar – and thinks, on more than one occasion, that maybe they were all good guys in another life.

The irony is delicious, really.

It’s six months into living with the Ramsey’s that Geoff invites him down into one of his little meetings in the basement. He recognizes the two other men easily – Jack and Michael, both being employees of Rooster Teeth themselves. Neither hold the same weight Geoff does, but both are well-known around the crew, despite Michael being relatively new himself. When they see him, Jack grins an easy and familiar grin, whilst Michael’s brow quirks in an entirely unimpressed manner.

Gavin decides he might just stay, if it means getting to annoy Michael.

Geoff wears a grin that is similar to both Jack and Gavin’s, and claps his hands together. “Well, Gavvers. I thought it was about time I brang you in on this.” He strides across the room and stops when behind Michael, clasping his hands onto the lad’s shoulders tightly. “Welcome to the Fake AH Crew, lad.”

“The _what_?” Gavin repeats, as he moves further into the room himself. Jack nudges out a chair for the younger man to sit on, and Gavin plops down on it heavily, grinning over at the bearded man.

Jack just winks in response.

Michael, on the other hand, sighs. Geoff seems to squeeze the curly haired lad’s shoulders tightly, because Michael jolts in his seat before turning his glare back up at Geoff. “Christ, fine. We’ll deal with your little dickie bitch, boss.” Then he looks back at Gavin, still glaring, but Gavin can tell it’s softened just a little. “It’s a fucking crew within a crew, dumbass. Like fuckin’ Inception. They have that in jolly ole’ England?”

Gavin rolls his eyes in response. “Of course we do, y’ donut. I just— don’t understand why?”

Both Jack and Geoff look surprised at that, and Gavin wonders if they’d ever wondered the same thing for themselves.

“Rooster Teeth is in it for the money,” Geoff says eventually, and Gavin is glad for the interruption to the terrible silence. “Fake AH? We’re in it for the fame!”

Michael laughs then, and Gavin can’t help but look surprised. “More like the infamy.”

.//.

Time goes on.

For a while, it stays as just the four of them – Geoff, Jack, Michael and Gavin. All four of them not only work well together, but they actually get _along_ ; something that Gavin knows they had all doubted at one point. Or at least, all of them had once doubted that Gavin and Michael would ever find common ground – it’s by sheer luck that they manage to do so, purely based on the fact Michael comes back to the Ramsey’s after a crappy night out on the town to find Gavin situated on the couch, halfway through a session of Minecraft.

(Geoff finds them both the morning after asleep on the couch, limbs awkwardly entwined and controllers carelessly left on the floor; he wakes them both with a smug smirk, and it’s from there that Gavin knows he is _really_ apart of the Fake AH Crew, and not just Geoff’s little _dickie bitch_.)

But they’re not a flawless crew. They only take on small heists, if any at all; they’re a crew made up of small time criminals and a showman. Gavin and Michael are good at what they do – Gavin teaches himself how to disable alarms and cameras, and Jack even teaches him what little he knows about hacking; Michael specializes in explosions, but he’s by far the best gunman they have.

That’s not to say Geoff and Jack aren’t good at what they do, though, because they certainly are – but what they’re good at isn’t exactly the most beneficiary of specialities. Jack’s quite possibly the greatest pilot in the whole of fucking America, but he’s not that great of a shot, nor is he as quick or agile as Gavin; Geoff operates best as their leader. He’s decent all-round, sans his own pilot skills, but the only place he excels is in leading the rest of them about – it would work well if Michael wasn’t such a prominent personality, or if Gavin wasn’t more adept to thinking on-the-fly.

So, Michael brings in the highly-sought after BrownMan, and soon after, Geoff and Jack manage to recruit the Vagabond.

BrownMan, or rather, Ray— is easily the best marksman Gavin has ever seen, and often boasts the claim that he’s never missed a shot. He’s young, almost precariously so, but he has the skills of a trained marksman twice his age.

Then there’s the Vagabond. Within an hour of knowing him, Gavin knows that he isn’t going to be snuggling up to Ryan and playing Minecraft any time soon; where Ray seems open to making, at the very least, meaningful temporary connections, Ryan only views them as means to an end: and really, Gavin doesn’t mind it.

He doesn’t have enough room in his heart for all five of them, anyway.

.//.

All good things come to an end.

They spend years together – breaking hearts and killing civilians and getting cocky. They become less like a crew, and more like a family; even though they’re technically still apart of the Rooster Teeth crew, all six of them know if worst comes to worst, it’s the Fake AH Crew they’ll pledge their allegiance to.

Even Ryan falls into their little mismatched group of misfits. There’s still a calculated distance between him and the rest, but with every passing day, it grows smaller and smaller until he barely wears his mask around any of their apartments, and until his hand stops going to his gun when in an enclosed space with one of the others.

Geoff and Jack are still very much the elders of the group, despite the fact Ryan is just barely older than Jack – seeing as they are easily the most responsible and level-headed of them all. Geoff generally empathizes with Ryan and Michael, easily understanding their anger and uneasiness; Jack, on the other hand, falls into step with Gavin and Ray – though both are notably less driven by their own emotions than Ryan and Michael, they do need someone to fall back on and Jack is always there to straighten them when they stumble or catch them when they fall.

Gavin is almost reminded of he and Dan by the dynamic of the crew. They all contradict wonderfully, and although it hurts to think of his best friend who he hasn’t gone home to visit in nearly three years, it’s familiar enough to soothe his worries and anxieties that it isn’t going to work out between them all.

But they’re cocky.

The near-death experiences give them the feeling that _they’re bloody invincible_ , and their heists get more and more extravagant – sometimes Michael will come limping away with a hunk of shrapnel embedded just above his knee, or Ray will stumble into the getaway vehicle clutching his bleeding shoulder, but they survive and it’s all just _wash, rinse and repeat_.

Then it all comes to a head.

It’s a normal heist, if anything. There’s nothing overly out of the ordinary about it – complete with Michael and Gavin jumping off a bridge into a waiting boat and Ray sniping from a very obvious position with no one around to watch his back. It’s a death wish for the three of them in particular, but it’s no better for Jack who’s in the the middle of clear sky and dropping grenades of the congregations of police, or Geoff and Ryan who are practically amongst the congregations of police officers and trying to kill them all silently.

Ryan goes down first, but his death is lost amongst Michael’s frustrations and the sound of guns going off. They’re not quiet enough, Geoff and Ryan, but they’ve done their job and taken the attention of Michael and Gavin – it’s later that they realize that Ryan had been lost to a rare competent policeman of the LSPD but they never get to mourn the Vagabond and all the lost opputunities.

(Ryan’s last words are _Gavin, get the fuck out of there!_ ; and Gavin finds a moment to himself and reminds himself of nights spent curled up on the couch playing Minecraft with the taller man, or sharing a cigarette and watching the stars dance across the night sky. Gavin thinks he cries.)

Geoff, perhaps predictably, is next. Jack accidently drops a grenade at the wrong time and although Geoff doesn’t die immediately, it’s more or less the cause of his death. A chunk of a police cruiser, the epicentre of this particular explosion, embeds itself next to Geoff’s ribs and Ray shoots him to take him out of his misery.

(Geoff’s last words are _thank you_ ; thank you for trusting me, thank you for staying with me, thank you for making me a better man. _Thank you, Ray, for having mercy_.)

Ray goes down not long after. Michael and Gavin have emerged from the bank and although some of the police have evacuated, having thought Ryan and Geoff were all they needed to worry about, there’s still too many and they’re shooting at _Michael_ and _Gavin_ and Ray can see blood staining through Gavin’s dark button up and Michael’s denim jeans. He puts away the sniper rifle and takes out the machine gun and goes in, guns blazing.

(Ray doesn’t say anything, he only smiles at Gavin and Michael’s surprised expressions; he goes out in a blaze of glory and if he had said anything at all, Gavin is sure that it would’ve been _YOLO, right?_ and he hates the other man for it, just a little, because Ray is so amazingly selfless but refuses to admit it and for _God’s sake_ , it isn’t fair that they’ve lost so much in so short a time.)

Jack is still talking into the communicators, saying that he’s still going ahead with the original plan and that Gavin and Michael should start approaching the bridge. Both Michael and Gavin kill every police officer they can, Michael with loud outrage and Gavin with his quiet fury; they’re both dangerous in that moment, almost impossibly so, and Gavin knows there will be a lot of broken hearts tonight.

None moreso than his own.

The remaining three stay in constant contact, despite Gavin crying over Ryan and dancing stars, and for a moment, Gavin finds himself thinking _we might just make it_.

Naturally, that’s when everything goes to shit. Again.

They’re at the bridge and Jack is telling them to _just go for it, god dammit_ , but Gavin is scared and lightheaded and oh, God, he doesn’t know if either of them will be able to survive the fall, let alone land in the fucking boat.

After a few minutes, Michael’s hand wraps around Gavin’s and he squeezes the younger boy’s hand tightly. Gavin almost wants to turn around and kiss him, to remember who they had been two years ago when they’d both been dumb and in love and although it’s all a little too blurry for Gavin to remember properly, the almost memory makes him smile.

“You and me, boi. No matter what, it’s gonna be you and me.” Michael’s voice is hoarse, and Gavin remembers that only twenty minutes before, Michael had been screaming for Geoff and Ryan and telling Ray to _stop being a fucking hero_ , and telling Jack to _shut the fuck up, Gav’s having a panic attack, shit— shit, just **shut the fuck up** , Jack!_

Gavin doesn’t remember having a panic attack.

“You and me, Michael.” Although Gavin doesn’t turn to his companion, he knows Michael is smiling at the familiar butchering of his name. Once upon a time, he’d complained about it; but it had grown on him, just as Gavin himself had. “For Geoff, Ryan and Ray, yeah?”

Jack is quiet in his ear, but Gavin thinks he can hear the oldest of the three of them now sniffling lightly, perhaps holding back tears of his own. Michael inhales sharply, his hand letting go of Gavin’s. “Yeah, bud. Tell you what. I’ll take you out drinking tonight. Good old whiskey, just like Geoff would’ve wanted tonight. We’ll pick up a girl, or even a guy – like you and Ryan used to, yeah? We’ll fuck ‘em real good. Even play some shitty CoD fuckin’ game, like we both know Ray would’ve. Asshole. You and me, and hell—even Pattillo, if he wants- we’ll call Lindsay and Kdin in and the four- or _five_ , whatever, of us will go out and watch the stupid fucking stars and you can tell us all about Ryan’s precious constellations.”

Gavin turns to Michael at last, and the other man is indeed smiling softly, the expression unfamiliar on his features. His face is tear-stained, and Gavin wonders when Michael had cried. “Pinky promise?”

Michael watches intently as Gavin draws a shaking pinky up, and ever-so-slowly, Michael uses his own blood-stained one to hook with Gavin’s. They stay there for a while, before Jack gently clears his throat. “Sorry, guys, but… we’re due to meet up with Ash and Meg in about ten minutes to give them their cut. Are we good?”

Both give a start, then nod before realizing Jack can’t see them. Michael, sensing Gavin’s inability to articulate what he wants to say, speaks for them both, “Yeah, Jack. We’re good. Tell Ash and Meg to get fucked, though. Someone ratted us out – there’s no fuckin’ way the LSPD responded that fucking quickly. I’m willing to bet Meg’s a fucking rat for DeFranco’s crew. Didn’t she used to run with Steve and Trisha?”

.//.

Gavin can’t tell which way is up.

There’s an unmistakable pull dragging him somewhere, but he can’t tell if he’s floating or sinking; surviving or saying goodbye. Michael is somewhere – they’d jumped together, hands clasped tightly against one another, but one of them had let go and they’d inevitably lost each other and Gavin is sure that his communicator is damaged for the endless water rushing into all of his available orifices.

It’s getting harder to breathe. It feels like a panic attack, but _so_ much worse – his lungs are filling _up, up, up_ , and God, he’s going to die, isn’t he—he’s going to die at the bottom of a smegging lake after surviving the worst heist in the history of the Fake AH Crew, and Michael and Jack will laugh at him and oh no, he’s sinking.

If the confusion was difficult for Gavin to comprehend, he didn’t anticipate clarity. He’s sinking _down, down, down_ , and Gavin’s always been a shitty swimmer. He wishes his parachute had worked. He wishes Michael hadn’t let go. He wishes Ryan had been there to catch him. He wishes Geoff had been there to tell him he’s a fucking idiot and he’s going to kill himself one day. He wishes Ray was there to laugh at him and Michael as they surfaced from the water, looking much like drowned rats.

He wishes Jack would just _let him die_.

But, of course, Jack does not. There are hands wrapping around Gavin and for a moment, the lad thinks they belong to a creature of the sea, but he doesn’t fight it at all; he is ready for death, he thinks. Ready to burn in hell with Ryan and Geoff and Dan and Ray.

(Dan died serving his country. Gavin wonders if that is penance enough for his wrongdoings.)

It isn’t until the cold steel of the boat against the back of Gavin’s back registers that he realizes that he was not being dragged down further, but instead up to the surface – to a world where he is missing four parts of his heart.

He thinks of an almost eighteen year old boy stealing Joel Heyman’s wallet and almost wishes he never approached the older man. He is so immensely exhausted, and his heart has never done well with being broken. Maybe life would be easier if he just stayed on the right path.

University. Get married. Have kids. Grow old. Go to heaven.

“Gav, Gav, breathe— dammit, _breathe_!” He’s trying. God, he’s trying. He wants to live, god dammit. He wants to go back to being seventeen years old and wants to force himself to walk the fuck away from Joel Heyman and Geoff Ramsey and Griffon Ramsey and Jack Pattillo and oh _God_ , Gavin can’t breathe, and he doesn’t want to live this life any more.

He just wants to be a kid again, playing Halo with best mate Dan and brother George. He just wants to _breathe_.

“Mi- Mich- where is he?” And Gavin doesn’t know how he manages to speak, really, because he still can’t fucking breathe, and he’s crying lukewarm tears and he’s just so _cold_ and dead and oh, oh, where’s his lovely little boi? If it wasn’t going to be Geoff, Jack, Ray, Ryan, Michael and Gavin, it was always going to be Michael and Gavin, they even bloody promised, and _no_ , where is he? Where’s Michael?

Jack’s sudden silence is more than enough to answer his haggard question.

Gavin literally howls in response, his aching throat protesting to the sudden strain. He’s alone now, he knows. Jack, bless his soul, will go back to doing what he does best – pushing away the idea that they were ever _something special_ , and the gent will go and build a house or something. Fly about. Maybe go see all those places he, Gavin and Geoff had once fawned over in a travel magazine; they’d made plans then, to see Venice and Sydney and Kenya, but Gavin doesn’t think he’ll see Achievement City again, let alone his homeland or the land down under.

Jack’s grip loosens, and Gavin uses what’s left of his energy to throw himself back overboard and down, _down, down_.

(When his lungs stop burning, those few seconds before death takes him, Gavin can hear Jack, faintly but still there – “I can’t do this without you, Gavvers. We can’t do this without your stupid face around. Come back to us when you can, yeah?”

And Gavin just wants to hug the older man and tell him _not to worry about it_ , because he’s going home – to Geoff and Ryan and Michael and Ray and maybe even _Dan_.

He thinks of Lindsay and Kdin, and hopes they go and watch the stars dance.)

* * *

_iii. and all i know of silence is that / when people go, they leave these great cold vacuums /  
and all i know of this space is that humans can't survive in it_

And in another, Gavin isn’t much of anything.

It’s not only he who is lacking in a proper direction, at least. The world itself seems confused, lost in the quiet after a war spanning decades. The landscape is war-torn, and Gavin wonders if they will ever return to the way the world was _before_. He hadn’t been around to experience it firsthand, but when he was younger, the more personable prison guards of his camp had sat their wards around a fire and told them of the way the Earth had been before the people had turned cruel and greedy, tearing it apart without a second thought.

The world before sounds lovely, especially in comparison to what it is now – all it is now is desolate and fire-damaged, a mere shadow of what it had once been, if Commander Burns is to be believed.

It is quiet, finally. For the first time too long, the world around Gavin is quiet. There are no planes flying overhead, too low and too close, and he can’t hear the screaming of the ones who disobey Heyman and Hullum. The war has ended, and only silence remains. It is haunting, Gavin thinks of it all. In twenty three years, Gavin has never had a fall nights sleep, and tonight he thinks it will be the first time he chooses to stay awake instead of electing to fall asleep.

Hesitantly, Gavin stands. His legs feel like petroleum jelly and he almost falls straight on his arse, but someone manages to grip his hips and keep him somewhat stable. There’s fear, for a moment – _it’s Heyman and he’s going to **kill me** just like he did Jeremy and Matt and Caleb and_ – but then Ryan is whispering in his ear, voice low and comforting, “It’s okay, Gav. You’re good. We’re okay.”

No, they’re not. If Gavin looks to his left, Caleb’s dead eyes will be staring him down.

Pointedly keeping his gaze square on the cracked window in front of him, Gavin relaxes in Ryan’s grip and remembers that Heyman is gone, now. They’re all gone. It’s just their wards who remain.

“Okay,” Gavin says after too long a silence. It’s too late for his cell mates, he realizes that now – has understood it for far too long, but his heart is still left aching at the thought of leaving his three friends behind. They’d all grown close over the many years they’d been stuck together (how long exactly, Gavin doesn’t care to know), and they’d made stupid little promises that they’d all make it out _together_.

Now, Gavin is leaving, and he has to leave Caleb, Matt and Jeremy behind.

After several more moments of long and foreign silence, Gavin turns to his right to face Ryan, and he is almost stunned at the older man’s close proximity. It’s surely not the first time they’d been in such close quarters – no, it was far from being so, but something about it feels different now. Sacred, almost. They’re all the other has left. Gavin swallows harshly at the thought, and forces himself to take a small step back. “We should bury them.”

Something in Ryan’s gaze softens at that, but in contrast, his grip on Gavin’s hips tightens. They’re both carefully avoiding looking to the left of the room, but they can’t ignore the smell of rotting flesh or even the incessant sound of flies buzzing.

They’re standing in a graveyard.

“We should,” Ryan murmurs, voice low and unsure. Before he continues, Gavin knows he’s not going to like what ever it is Ryan wants to say. “But we _can’t_ , Gav. It’d take too long, and… they could come back, you know. Sure, they’ve been called out, but who’s to say they won’t come back when they’ve been discharged? It’s too dangerous, yeah?”

He doesn’t like it.

“I can’t just leave them here,” Gavin responds in protest, his voice breaking where he wishes it wouldn’t. “We can even leave them in the same grave, or something, just don’t make me leave them like this, Ry. _Please_.”

Ryan is right, Gavin knows this. The war may have ended, and those unable to fight in it may be free from their pseudo jails, but their prison guards are still at large – and Gavin’s, at the very least, were sure to be determined to break any of their surviving wards.

But he can’t leave them, not like this.

They hold each others gazes for several moments, both looking as unsure as each other. For a moment, Gavin finds himself wishing that Ryan isn’t as hard to read as he actually is – that instead, he wishes that the older man is more like an open book, much like Gavin himself. It would make situations like this so much easier – but of course, the world is not kind, and Ryan remains as unreadable as ever.

“Okay,” Ryan concedes, his smile faint and bitter. “Okay.”

.//.

It’s years later when it all stops hurting.

The world is just beginning to find its’ feet once again, and Gavin has the sinking feeling that he is being left behind. Ryan finds his place in this new world easily, with his charming smiles and knowledge for miles. He fits in with what the world wants to be – intelligent, intellectual, and humble. It seems to Gavin, at least, that Ryan serves as a near-perfect embodiment of this _new world_ , and Gavin is glad for it.

He’s known Ryan going on twenty years, and he thinks it’s about time the world realizes what exactly the man is capable of.

Even then, Gavin can’t help but feel abandoned. It’s selfish, part of him knows, but Ryan has been his friend for so incredibly long – and it seems the older man has left him behind without a second thought. They share an apartment together, sure, and Gavin often finds himself falling asleep in Ryan’s arms after waking from a nightmare, but it’s almost as if the only time they properly spend together is in the dead of night, when Gavin can hardly breathe without Ryan’s dulcet tones lulling him to sleep.

And Gavin has never done well with being on his own. He leeches off of the company of others’ to keep himself afloat, and the only people he has to comfort him at this point are the memories of his dead best friends. He remembers Caleb’s mischievous grin, and the way Jeremy laughed with his whole being. He remembers Matt’s stupid jokes, and the way they’d all huddled together after Heyman or one of the other officers were particularly rough with either Caleb or Gavin.

He misses them all so much that their absence feels that it qualifies a separate entity entirely of its’ own, an empty body that follows Gavin wherever he goes, but he knows that he _has_ to move on. He owes it to Ryan, and to the three of them, and even to himself. They’ve lived in an ugly world for so long, and people like Ryan are trying to restore it – so Gavin does what, in another life, he thinks he’ll do best, and grins a firefly grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The world doesn’t know him well enough to tell it’s a lie, and he’s welcomed into it without a second thought; and although Gavin makes sure he doesn’t look Ryan in the eyes too often, he knows the other man is aware it’s all a hoax on the foreigner’s end.

It stops hurting, until it does again.

And when it does, it’s only then that he is honest with Ryan. It’s too easy to lie, Gavin thinks, but he’s weak and Ryan’s all he really has left.

.//.

And time goes on _and on and on_.

Even though the guilt threatens to swallow Gavin whole, he forces himself to move on from his past. His smile slowly becomes more and more genuine, and although the nights he finds himself crying in Ryan’s bed slowly grow more frequent, he feels as if he is finally _ready_ to become a part of the new world that Ryan is working so hard to establish.

Ryan keeps him at arms length – a precaution, Gavin is sure, but he is tired of being treated like a child and wants nothing more than to dive head first into rebuilding the world to resemble what Commander Burns had described to an eager and idealistic six year old once upon a time, so he instead bypasses Ryan altogether and slots himself between two of Ryan’s new friends, Michael and Ray, and finds he fits there quite naturally. They welcome him with open arms and their own firefly grins, and the three of them compliment each other nicely.

(If Gavin is honest with himself, the dynamic between the three of them reminds him of the dynamic between he, Caleb, Jeremy and Matt.

If Gavin is honest with himself, his heart literally _aches_ at the thought.)

.//.

“You know, we left the camps four years ago.” Ryan says, and it’s a rare night where they’re both alone in the apartment. Griffon, yet another friend of Ryan’s, is barely two minutes gone – the three of them spent the day putting together furniture to try and spruce up the apartment of the two lads, with somewhat positive results.

Gavin’s breath catches in his throat, and oh God, his heart is suddenly so _so_ heavy and he’s not sure he can carry it. Four years since Heyman and Hullum had disappeared, four years since he’d left his three best friends in a shallow grave.

Four years, perhaps, since he’d last felt properly alive.

But Gavin is too aware of Ryan’s cool stare slicing into his back, leaving lacerations Gavin knows he’ll be feeling for days upon weeks upon months to come. “Yeah?” Gavin prompts, sounding terribly weak and needy and God, he hates it— hates himself for it. “I- uh, I didn’t think you’d keep track of the days.”

Ryan laughs gently, the sound familiar and Gavin just wants to wrap itself up in it and make it his home; it’s safe and secure, and Gavin wants nothing more than to smother his self within it. “Hard not to.”

It’s only then that it occurs to Gavin that he’s not the only one affected by the deaths of Caleb, Jeremy and Matt. Back when they’d all been prison wards – born of weak men and therefore weak themselves, Ryan may have been drafted into a different part of the camp (where the four lads were all little more than prison wards, Ryan was ruled strong enough to go out and help secure food sources for the entirety of the camp with Hullum and Burns), but he was still very much the pseudo big brother of the four of them, and the absence of three of his pseudo brothers was sure to hurt him as well.

Then there’s this _guilt_ that’s pulsing through Gavin’s entire being, stronger than it ever has before – because it’s been _four bloody years_ and Ryan hasn’t been allowed to grieve three of his best friends because the one left behind is a weak little shit and God, Michael’s right; he is a piece of shit.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin somehow manages out, speaking without really taking notice of it. He’s never had much of a filter, but it seems more pronounced now, as his profuse apologies keep breaking apart the comfortable silence between the two – he just keeps going and going until it hurts to breathe through it all, and all he is are missed opputunities and selfishness and _i wish i’d died four years ago_.

Ryan stays silent throughout it all, and when Gavin quietens, he pulls the younger lad into a tight embrace and whispers gentle words into Gavin’s temple that he doesn’t quite hear. It reminds Gavin just barely of four years ago when they were stood in their prison, carefully avoiding the dead eyes of Caleb.

They fall asleep there, arms wound tightly around one another and Ryan’s face marred with dried tears.

.//.

And then, all of a sudden, Gavin thinks he’s dying.

One moment, he’s drifting and almost content in Ryan’s arms, and the next he feels like he’s on _fire_ and can feel himself losing grip on Ryan’s lapels and life and God, he feels so old? When did he get so old?

Michael and Ray are somewhere in the background, and Gavin knows that if he listens hard enough, he’ll be able to hear Griffon and her partner, Geoff on the other end of Michael’s phone call. He’s dying, he’s sure – and they’re trying to save him, he’s sure.

But there’s a part of him – and he’s not entirely sure where it came from, that just wants them to let him _die_. Whatever has happened since the night Ryan cried and tonight, Gavin’s just so bloody tired. He misses Caleb, Jeremy and Matt but he knows he will miss Ryan, Michael and Ray if he leaves – but there’s twenty one years of history, compared to what feels like maybe four with Michael and Ray. He loves them, and does so unabashedly, but he’s not one for love, not if it’s for anyone outside of Ryan and his first group of lads.

“Gav, come on, just stay with me. Hey, hey, no, look at me, Gavvo.” Through the loudness of his thoughts, Gavin can just barely hear Ryan’s voice. It’s enough to bring him crashing back to reality, and for that, Gavin is grateful. He’s not sure when it happened, but his mind is very much the last place he wants to be right now. “Hey, there we go. You’re okay, Gav. You’ve done good.”

No, he hasn’t. If he looks down, he’ll see slick red blood practically leaking from Ryan’s hands, where they’re pressed against his side. If he looks down, he’ll see that there’s too much blood and he’ll realize that yes, he’s dying.

He hears a shrill noise somewhere in the background that he doesn’t quite recognize, but it doesn’t sound quite there; like it belongs in another time, another place.

“Wh- what- _Rye_?” and he sounds so pitiful, but Gavin doesn’t feel as if the words even belong to him – they belong to someone else, just like this whole scene. It’s not right, _it doesn’t fit_. He was meant to grow old and fall in love with Ryan Haywood, but that’s been taken from him just like his memories and his best friends and his family – everything is being taken away to fit some grand design but Gavin just wants it all to _stop_. To help build the new world. To introduce Michael to Lindsay Tuggey, a friend of Geoff’s who wears sarcasm like armor and would be absolutely perfect for him. Or even to introduce Ray to Tina, a volunteer for Griffon and Gavin’s clean up efforts with a beautiful smile and a kind heart. He wants to grow old and smile at this new world that he helped build, hands wound tightly with those of Ryan Haywood, and _goddammit_ , this is not his life.

Ryan almost smiles, but he looks tired and war-torn and all Gavin can think of is _four years ago_ but he knows it’s been even longer, now. Time passed without him noticing, and now he’s in the arms of who might have been his soulmate and going, going, _gone_.

(The shrill sounds keep on resounding, and Ryan’s voice keeps pleading. They sound right, now – the sirens and Ryan. Like they are where they belong, iron in its’ most pure form.

“Don’t leave me, you fuck, don’t you _dare_ ,” and although it doesn’t sound like _Gavin’s_ Ryan, it all seems right – and Gavin wants to fight in a battle he’s already lost, to find his way back to where all is right with the world, where everything is as it should be.

But the opportunity is snatched from him as Ryan lulls him into an eternal sleep with his desperate pleas and muttered obscenities. It feels so _right_ , but so wrong at the same time; and Gavin lets himself fall into sleep, and he hopes he is still wrapped tightly in his Ryan’s arms.)

* * *

_iv. you should've seen the way he was looking at you / like you're the ocean / and he's desperate to drown_

In another life, Gavin… isn’t really Gavin at all.

He’s a fifteen hundred year old time lord who suddenly has a penchant for stealing the faces of those he’s met perhaps once or twice through his entire time line. He’d met actual-Gavin twice, once when in Oxfordshire investigating a rumoured alien infestation, and the other in Texas, of all places, when Clara had gone and gotten herself lost.

When his twelfth self finally lets himself rest in his desperate search for his home planet, Thirteen enters the world with a bang and a bloody _whopping_ nose. His companion at the time, a lovely little lad by the name of Monty, stares at his new self with something bordering on _fear_ in his eyes, and the Doctor wonders if he’s intimidating, once again.

(What a laugh!)

The TARDIS offers up a mirror for the Doctor to look into, and when he does, his eyebrows come together in confusion. He recognizes the face, yes – and it worries him, because _why does he keep stealing the faces of people he’s already met_? In all his years on Gallifrey, he had never even heard whisperings of Time Lords stealing the faces of their acquaintances, nor had he been warned it was a very real possibility.

“What’s wrong?” Monty asks after several beats, his voice level. The Doctor knows if he looks over at Monty, there will no longer be any trace of fear in his eyes, and is glad for it. It was part of the reason he’d elected to take the lad along with him after losing Clara – Monty never needed reassurance, not really; he was well-trained in reassuring himself, and although he now sometimes lets his guard down and lets the Doctor hug him tight and whisper empty promises into his temple, it’s nice to know that there’s one less thing the Doctor has to worry about.

Monty waits patiently as the Doctor collects his thoughts, and when he does, listens intently, “I’ve seen this face before. I don’t… understand, do I? I’m bloody thick, right. So bloody _thick_ – why does this keep happening, Monty? Why am I stealing faces? This _never_ happened before.”

Silence hangs low and heavy as the Doctor paces around the console, pulling his hair in every which way, getting more and more agitated as time goes on and he still has no answer. What did Caecilius and this face have in common? Why, why, _why_?

Monty’s hand closes around one of the Doctor’s, and the alien jumps in response. “ _Calm down_.” The human murmurs, his hand falling back to his side. “We’ll figure it out.”

And they do. The face belongs to Gavin Free, a video-game commentator and YouTube Content Creator. He died a month or two before the Doctor stole his face, due to being in a car accident with a few of his co-workers and a drunk driver. Monty knows a few of Gavin’s friends – they belong to his life before the Doctor, and manages to learn quite a bit about Gavin.

But despite their hardest efforts, they can’t quite figure out why the Doctor stole the face of a dead man.

And then Monty is gone, gone, _gone_ and although the Doctor’s heart literally aches at the absence of his companion and friend, he doesn’t cry about it. Can’t cry about it. Whoever Gavin Free was, he was not a crier – and the Doctor is grateful for it. He has cried too long and too hard in his fifteen hundred years, and he is grateful for the reprieve.

He’s not entirely sure when Michael Jones comes along (God, he keeps forgetting – why does he keep forgetting?), but it isn’t long before the TARDIS is creating a new room for the Doctor’s latest stray.

Michael being on the TARDIS, with this incarnation of himself, is so very wrong indeed. He knew Gavin, worked with him and was even his best friend – he looks at the Doctor and sees Gavin, and he sees Gavin but is looking at the Doctor. But the Doctor has always been a very selfish man, and Michael is more than willing to keep an old dog company as he races across the galaxy.

“Why do you have Gavin’s face?” Michael asks, one night. They’re sitting on the doorstep to the TARDIS, watching as a star collapses in on itself. It’s a question that the Doctor has no doubt Michael has wanted to ask for a long time, but he is grateful that the human has managed to hold his tongue this long. “It’s not just his _face_ , even. You speak like him, dude. How many people use the fucking word ‘ _spaff_ ’?”

Whoever Gavin Free was, the Doctor feels he is now.

It’s not a good enough answer for Michael though, and he knows this. He wishes, just for a moment, for Monty to be back at his rightful spot next to the Doctor, with his logic and determination – the Doctor is all of these things, of course he is, but the Doctor is a selfish man. He feeds off of the strength of those around him, and Michael isn’t as willing to give as the Doctor is to take.

As the remnants of the star disappear and instead begin to form into a black hole, the alien pushes himself to his feet and offers his companion a hand. After a moment, Michael takes it, still watching the Doctor suspiciously. “I’m not sure. That’s what I was doing in Austin, actually – trying to figure out why I had his face.” Gently, he pulls Michael back towards the console and the doors shut themselves. “I’d met him twice before. Once in Oxfordshire, the other in Austin. It’s happened before, this. Me taking people’s faces. But… I’d met Gavin literally a few months before I regenerated. Caecilius, the other bloke, I’d met him literally three hundreds years before. I don’t _know_ why I took his face, Michael. I don’t even know where to begin looking.”

Michael winces at what the Doctor supposes is a familiar butchering of his name, and he’s reminded again just how wrong it is that he’s taken advantage of Michael’s denial over the death of his best friend. He should be home – with wife Lindsay and better friend Ray and _Rassilion_ , he has a bloody job, but the Doctor is weak and selfish and Michael is lonely.

(Two weeks later, the Doctor leaves Michael in his own bed, barely an hour after he’d first taken him away. It’d been a good run – nearly eight months, but the Doctor is sick of being treated like a dead man, and Michael deserves so much better than an imposter.

He tries to ignore the way he can hear Michael’s voice in the halls of the TARDIS, and the soft cries from the auburn haired man that haunt him when he falls asleep.

It’s all _wrong, wrong, wrong_ and the Doctor is not Gavin.

Gavin is dead, and the Doctor thinks that the dead should stay dead.)

.//.

There’s another life where Gavin is in love with a God.

He doesn’t know how it happens, or even how he found out, and the fact that it doesn’t bother him bothers him most of all. It feels natural, loving Michael Jones of Jersey. It feels natural, knowing the secret of Mogar the Righteous.

Michael is all bright eyes and wide grins and anger and vengeance and Gavin loves all of it, _all of him_. It’s second nature to him, almost – just as easy as breathing, and Lord, Gavin knows it should bother him, but it just _doesn’t_ , and he doesn’t know why.

And on the rare occasions in which Gavin wakes before Michael, Gavin thinks he knows why. Looking at Michael whilst the lad is still sleeping, he doesn’t look anything like the vengeful God that strikes fear into the heart of not only mere mortals, but also the few other Gods who dare walk the Earth as well. He looks young and content, without the weight of a thousand worlds upon his very-capable but very-burdened shoulders.

But the problem of loving an immortal being is that Gavin himself is very much a _mortal_. And mortals have such terribly small life times, especially when compared to that of a goddamn _God_. So Michael crams as much as he can into Gavin’s tiny life span, taking him to places Gavin is sure most people dreamed about when they were children.

(He wishes he knew if he dreamed of visiting Zamość, or Saint Catherine’s Monastery. He just can’t remember anything before Michael, all he can remember is _Michael Michael Michael_.)

Gavin follows Michael wherever he can, and the other seems to understand what his human counterpart wants to say but just _can’t_ – _don’t go where i cannot follow_ , _without you there is no me_ , _stay with me just stay with me_.

And as they keep on running around the world, ticking things off of the bucket list Gavin is sure he has lying around somewhere, Gavin gets older and Michael grows more and more desperate. When Gavin hits thirty, Michael no longer seems to be this _untouchable_ entity that the world has made him out to be, and it almost seems as if all traces of Mogar the Righteous have disappeared. He is, instead, _Michael Jones_ , a thousand year old man trapped in the body of one who is twenty seven for all of eternity, watching his soulmate age without him.

The terrible thing about being human, Gavin thinks, is that he has very little to no control as to when Death comes to claim him. He knows he’s had too many close calls – almost drowning whilst diving in the Great Barrier Reef, held at gunpoint at a bank in Croatia, targeted by a bloody Italian Mafia – and although Michael can try all he likes to stall Death’s plan for him, Gavin’s clock is ticking away, slowly but surely, and both are practically powerless to do anything to stop it.

Gavin knows it’s the first time in a long time that Michael has been powerless, and never hesitates to whisper _I’m sorry_ into his lover’s temple as he’s drifting off to sleep. Michael’s too far gone to hear it, but Gavin takes solace in the fact that he’s said his apologies at all, nonetheless.

But then Gavin _blinks_ and he’s suddenly eighty years old and where, oh _where did the last fifty years go_? There were so many places they still had to visit, so many people still to meet, and _no no no_ , not this again, _not again_.

(When did it happen before?)

Michael is kneeling next to his bedside, steady hands clasped tightly around Gavin’s shaking ones. There is an old soul in a young body, and a young soul in an old body. They contradict in so many ways, but it all feels so completely and utterly _wrong_ – they were supposed to age together, to grow old and keep on exploring the world; in another life, they would’ve grown old together. In the right life, they would’ve grown old together.

“I know you’ve been tired lately, Gav, but please, I’ve got so much more to show you,” Michael murmurs, his words a pleasant background noise to Gavin’s thoughts. He’s still dumbfounded over how _fifty years passed_ in the blink of an eye, and the thought leaves him sick to his stomach – fifty years passed, and he doesn’t remember a single second of any of them. “Just… don’t go, boi. Don’t leave me here alone. You said we had all the time in the world, remember? When we went to New York to see the stupid Empire State. I wanted to take you to Australia, to go see Ayers Rock, but you said we’d go see it later. _We’ve got all the time in the world, m’ lovely little Michael_. Remember? We never got to go see Ayers Rock, Gav. Don’t you leave me here, _please_.”

And Gavin feels himself drifting off, and the shadow of lips brushing across his forehead. If he listens hard enough, he can hear incessant beeps that he knows belong in a hospital and Michael’s quiet murmurs, laden with unshed tears and infrequent pauses.

He drifts off from this life, and into the next.

.//.

In one life, Gavin is dying.

It’s all he knows, really. There is a day where he wakes up to doctors speaking in hushed tones about the mystery of his several conditions, and how he’s managed to survive this long. Right then and there, he makes it his personal mission to survive through what ever it is that is wrong with him, if only to take the piss.

That’s as early as he remembers, and if Nurse Dunkelman is telling him the truth, then he’s forgotten nearly the entirety of his first twenty three years.

There’s a boy who visits him every day, too. He can’t quite remember who he is, despite the amount of times Nurse Dunkelman, Doctor Pattillo and his volunteer, Tina, remind him of the male’s identity. It slips through his grasp, like sand through open fingers, and Gavin doesn’t dwell on it too long. There are others who visit, too – Dan and Geoff and Meg and other people Gavin doesn’t recognize, but it’s only the boy who is back every other day. 

He never says much, just sits there with this sad smile on his face that Gavin wants to rub away. There are some days when he speaks for what feels like hours, recounting stupid shit they had done together before Gavin had been sentenced to permanent hospital stays. Gavin wants so badly to remember his own memories, but he just _can’t_ , and at the very least, the guy seems to understand.

He still smiles that bloody smile, though, and Gavin practically wants to cry whenever he catches a glimpse of it.

One day, Gavin wakes up and finds the boy curled into the side, not asleep but not quite awake either. The notably lankier of the two doesn’t have the heart to tell him to move, so instead he reaches up and tangles his hand in the boy’s auburn curls, the gesture painfully familiar. The boy hums contentedly in response, his eyes drifting shut. When the pain gets too much for Gavin to continue, his hand falls back to his side and he settles for grasping the boy’s hand in his own.

After several moments, the boy sighs, the sound so innately sad that Gavin feels his stomach pulling at the mere prospect of his supposed best friend being sad. “I wish you’d wake up, Gav. It’s lonely without you.”

Gavin doesn’t quite have the heart to tell the boy that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and they instead lay there for a few hours, drowning in the inevitable silence.

Michael leaves that night and doesn’t come back.

Gavin dies a few days later, cold and alone, and instead of going into the so-familiar light, finds solace in the darkness.

* * *

_v. my heart feels so heavy and i don't know how to carry it_

In one life, Gavin wakes up.

It feels strange. He’s been here before, he’s sure – he can remember it, like a half-forgotten dream. The stark white walls and uncomfortable bedding, the warm digits entwined with his icy ones; it’s very much familiar to him, but he can’t remember why. He’s never been in the hospital before. Not as a patient, in the very least.

He can’t _remember_ , and it’s leaving him gasping for breath. Why can’t he remember? Why does he not want to remember? Where is he? Why is he here? _Why, why, why_?

Before he can even begin to properly sort through his thoughts, the warm fingers entwining with his own are gone and Gavin feels lost without them. It almost feels as if he’s free to go, now – to float away from this world and into the next, but _no no no_ , that can’t all be right. There is only this world. This isn’t _Doctor Who_ or Star Trek or any of those bloody ridiculous sci-fi shows that George so dearly adores.

“Doctor?!”

 _Corpirate_. No, no – that’s not him. The Corpirate is a character from Lets Play WWE 2013, the overall antagonist of the first season of X-Ray and Vav, a creation of Geoff and Lindsay’s. The Corpirate isn’t real, and for a moment, Gavin wonders if any of this is.

 _Doctor_. The name is familiar and Gavin almost answers to it himself – certainly tries to, but his throat is dry and it literally _hurts_ to even begin to try to speak. He’s reminded of cold steel and the absence of a soulmate, crying and pleading and _howling_ but none of it belongs. It’s all make-believe, from games he remembers playing.

 _Geoff_. It’s Geoff. Of course it’s Geoff. The older brother Gavin never got to have, and one half of his surrogate American parents. Who else would it be? _I am Gavin, and this is Geoffrey and today…_ It’s always the two of them, but Gavin is amazed at how much he finds that he misses the older man’s company. He feels so terribly alone and without Geoff’s very-much innate warmness spreading throughout his bones, Gavin feels himself drifting back to the too-familiar darkness of his dreams.

.//.

When he wakes up again, Gavin really wishes he hadn’t.

It hurts to _breathe_ , and the pain flows throughout his limbs, white-hot and searing – it’s everywhere he can even begin to think of, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

“Gav, _Gav_ , breathe with me, it’s okay,” and it’s Geoff again, voice hurried and haggard. It should be comforting, Gavin knows, but all he can think is _dead dead dead_ , and he doesn’t know why. He flinches away from Geoff’s touch, pushing himself into the brace on the other side of the bed, despite the way it digs into his tender shoulder blades.

He knows this is Geoff. He knows Geoff. Geoff, who is sleepy eyes and genuine laughter and intoxicating breath – he knows this man better than he thinks he knows anyone else, but as he looks into the older man’s bright blue eyes, he doesn’t think of _home_. He still thinks of the Corpirate and for a moment, he is Vav, out of his depth and rightly terrified.

Gavin sags against the brace, and lets Geoff draw him into a tentative hug. He still smells of woodsmoke and whiskey, and it serves to remind Gavin where he is. He’s still hurting – and he thinks he might just pass out from how much it _actually hurts_ , but as Geoff’s familiar hands card their way through Gavin’s hair, and his smell threatens to overwhelm all his other senses, he’s hit with this unbridled sense of calm, and he forgets the pain for only a moment before it comes back with a screaming vengeance.

“You’re okay, buddy. We’re okay.”

No, they’re not. Gavin is in a hospital and he can’t quite discern between real life and fake. This is quite possibly the opposite of okay, and Gavin just wants to go back home to his empty house and go back to missing Meg too much and too hard.

(Gavin remembers Ryan saying _we’re okay_ , but they weren’t, they _weren’t_ , because a dead Caleb was staring them down and what the _hell_.)

.//.

The next time Gavin wakes up, Geoff is not at his side.

All that remains of Geoff is a book that Gavin can only imagine belongs to Geoff. It could belong to anyone, sure—but Geoff and Griffon are the only avid readers Gavin really knows. Ryan, Kdin and Lindsay all read for leisure, and Gavin’s sure more than a few others around the company are the same, but he knows the Achievement Hunters on a level better than he’ll ever know anyone else.

Geoff is gone, but there is a doctor at the foot of his bed, none the wiser to her awoken patient. The redhead is looking down at a clipboard, her lips drawn down into a concerned frown. After a beat, she glances up and her dark brown eyes lock with Gavin’s own green. “Mr. Free, hello!” She smiles then, and although Gavin can tell it’s all an act, it soothes his worries over his missing friend. “Your friend, Mr. Ramsey, is out talking to all your other friends. You’re very popular, you know.”

Her smile fades then, and Gavin swallows nervously. “Mr. Free, you’ve been in a medically induced coma for the past nineteen days. Do you remember what happened?”

He remembers, and he doesn’t. Gavin wears a frown of his own as he tries to collect his memories, and eventually he resorts to only shaking his head in answer to her question.

“You were in a car accident with several of your co-workers,” the woman starts out, resting on the armrest to Geoff’s chair. She looks awfully small there, and Gavin has to wonder how much of a doctor she really is. “You were on your way back from lunch, I believe – and there was a drunk driver. He ploughed through an intersection into your friend’s car.” She pauses then, frowning deeply. “Do you remember any of this, Gavin?”

Gavin’s brow furrows, and not only at the sudden use of his first name. He’s beginning to piece together parts of his memory, but not all of it fits together – he’d been in Ryan’s car, with Kerry, Miles, Ray and of course, Ryan Haywood himself. They’d been out at Homeslice and were rushing back to the office, their orders taking too long to get there and causing them to be cutting it fine to get back before break ended.

“Are they—” Gavin starts, before grimacing at the harsh feel of his throat. His doctor doesn’t miss a beat, rushing to fill a glass with cool water and supporting his head as she helps him down it. “Thanks. Are the others okay?”

She smiles then, full and disbelieving, as she settles back onto the armrest. “They’re all fine. Mr. Haywood practically carried you here himself – Mr. Shawcross had minor injuries, but you got the brunt of the collision. They’re all out in the waiting room, sweetheart.” She takes a moment as she places the glass back on Gavin’s bedside table, and then she folds her hands. “Would you like me to go grab them? Only one can be in at a time until we further assess your physical condition, but the sentiment is still there.”

Gavin smiles back at her, and settles back further into his pillow. He suddenly feels very, very tired, as if this very simple conversation practically drained all his energy. “Maybe tomorrow, love. I’d be terrible company right now.”

.//.

This time, when Gavin wakes up, the seat to his right is very much occupied.

For a moment, he thinks it’s Geoff. Whoever is in the seat is practically hulking it, and he can’t think of anyone else with the build necessary to hulk such a large chair.

(Yeah, Ryan and Jack were both pretty capable of doing the same, now that he thinks about it.)

Then his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness and he finds Ryan’s own blue eyes watching him intently. The man’s stare is intimidating, and Gavin barely restrains the need to shrink away from it. Instead, he stares back and waits for the gent to explain.

Gavin blinks and suddenly Ryan’s arms are around him, gentle and tentative, and the older man is whispering into his temple promises too low for Gavin too hear. He doesn’t quite mind, though, and instead burrows himself into Ryan’s chest, taking greedy sniffs of the other man’s familiar and yet unfamiliar scent – he smells like printer toner and petrichor, and Gavin finds himself nearly disappointed that he doesn’t smell of ashes and petrol, a familiar scent all of its own.

Ryan pulls back eventually, and Gavin is surprised to find that he can practically read the man in one simple glance. He’s feeling guilty for _God_ knows what reason, and Gavin just wants to relieve him of his unknown burden, to tell him that even Atlas couldn’t shoulder the burden of the galaxy.

After a beat, Ryan smiles a sad smile that looks wrong upon his features. “I’m sorry, Gavin.”

And all Gavin can do is smile back. “Don’t be, you silly sausage.”

.//.

A month later, Gavin wakes up in his own bed.

The space next to him is painfully empty, but he doesn’t bother dwelling on it. It has been so for nearly two months now, and they’re probably the better for it.

He casts the crutches at his bedside a disgusted look, and Gavin suddenly finds himself wishing he’d taken Ryan or Jack up on their offers for Gavin to take up temporary residence in their guest rooms.

“Gav? Hey, asshole; you better not be fucking dead in there.”

Despite himself, Gavin nearly smiles. Geoff taking up temporary residence on his couch was a satisfactory compromise. “Five hundred percent chance I’m dead, Geoffrey.”

The door cracks open, and Geoff with his messy bed head peeks through the open gap. He’s grinning his trademark sleepy grin, complete with half-lidded eyes and a droopy moustache. It’d look properly ridiculous on anyone else, Gavin thinks, but it suits Geoff to a near perfect T, and the thought makes him wear his own grin.

“You sure you’re still okay to go to work, lad? The guys’d understand if you needed more time off.”

And they would, Gavin knows. But he’s barely seen any of them since getting discharged from the hospital the week prior, sans Geoff for obvious reasons, and he misses them all. “I’m about to bloody insane if I have to spend one more day in this house, mate. It’s only a half day, anyway. I’m sure I can handle it. If I don’t, the others’ll be on my arse.”

Less than an hour later, Gavin is seated at his desk, so he knows he’s said the right thing. He can sense Geoff’s almost-worried gaze burning into his back, but at least it’s only the two of them in the office right now – Jeremy and Matt had been in about five minutes earlier, but had left quickly to help Joel and Adam film a new _How To_ , and although Gavin can’t explain why, when he saw the two gamers, his heart swelled with relief and he even readily returned Jeremy’s warm hug and laughed at Matt’s awkward welcome back.

But now it’s only the two of them and Geoff’s always been a paranoid bastard, and Gavin really just wishes Ray or whoever’s supposed to get here next would hurry along and slice through the obvious tension in the room.

It doesn’t take long for Ray to show up, thankfully, but Gavin barely even notices the entrance of his buddy in superheroism. He’s found a distraction in watching all the YouTube videos he’d missed in his absence, and he doesn’t realize Ray’s entrance up until the moment Ray’s hand clamps down on Gavin’s shoulder, gentle but still startling. Gavin gives a yelp at the sudden jerk of his chair, but the moment he sees Ray in the reflection of one of his monitors, he slumps down in his seat and spins around, flashing an apologetic smile at his friend. “Bloody hell, Ray! S’nice to see you, too.”

Ray grins, looking somewhere between sheepish and apologetic. “Nice to see you back, Vav. It was way too quiet around here without you.”

And then Ray’s hand is gone, and a somehow familiar chill settles in Gavin’s brittle bones. He’s glad to see Ray, really – almost too glad. He knew the lad was okay, thanks to Geoff constantly adhering to Gavin’s wishes to check up on the crew, but that didn’t quite stop Gavin’s niggling paranoia, and seeing his friend in person is more than enough to do so. “You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily, mate! Maybe next time.”

Something flashes in Ray’s gaze, but his grin doesn’t falter. “Let’s not test that again any time soon, huh?”

Then, in stumbles Michael with Lindsay not too far behind. Both grin in the direction of Ray and Gavin, regardless Michael’s obvious exhaustion, and Geoff finally tears his gaze from Gavin and goes back to focusing on his work.

“Ah, boi! About time you showed your stupid ass around here.” Michael’s grinning harder than Gavin thinks he’s ever seen the other lad grin, and the older of the two doesn’t waste a moment in striding over to Gavin’s desk and drawing the sitting lad into a tight hug. It’s safe and secure, and Gavin feels his eyes flutter shut as he buries his face in Michael’s hair. They don’t do this often – their friendship is more harsh nudges and playful wrestling, but it feels _right right right_ , and Gavin takes comfort in finding the right world to be in, after feeling as if he’s failed so many times.

Ray snorts at the sight and murmurs a soft _gay_ before retreating to his desk, booting up his monitor and X-Box in the same motion. Lindsay, on the other hand, just grins harder and when Gavin opens his arms further for her to join the hug, wastes no time in doing so. There’s the absence of someone else, and it makes Gavin swallow nervously, but he has no doubts that they’ll eventually figure out how to ignore the absence of their forth.

After a few beats, Michael’s grip around Gavin’s shoulders loosens and he draws back, still grinning and eyes gleaming with what Gavin thinks might just be tears. “Hasn’t been the same without you, Gavvers.”

Lindsay hums in agreement, and Gavin can feel her smile against his shoulder. “You scared the fuck out of us, Gavino. Never again, okay?”

Gavin leans back in his chair, one hand against a shoulder belonging to the two Joneses. “I’ll do my best, Jones Squared. Now go get to work, y’ slackers.”

Michael does as he is told, but Lindsay gives Gavin one quick squeeze before disappearing back into the B Team’s office. Michael offers Gavin up some unedited footage for the next Play Pals to edit, and Gavin practically jumps at the offer, and he’s glad to hear that Geoff and Ryan have taken over the recordings for Play Pals in Gavin’s absence again – it’s an easy chemistry, much like that of Michael and Gavin, and it’s a very easy transition to make.

Jack rocks up nearly an hour later, with coffee and donuts for everyone. He ditches them on the table as soon as he notices Gavin in his usual seat in the corner, wrapped up in an Achievement Hunter blanket. “Gavvers!” And even through his headphones, Gavin can hear the older man and carefully takes them off, spinning around and grinning up at the bear of a man he knows as Jack Pattillo.

“Jacky boy!” Before Gavin can say anything else, Jack’s arms are wound around him in a somewhat familiar embrace, and the younger of the two settles for burying his face in the other’s shoulder. It feels strangely intimate for the two, just like the hug between Michael and Gavin, and Gavin feels so much worse for it. “You smell nice.” He mumbles against Jack’s jacket, the citrus of his shampoo and the mintiness of his toothpaste a pleasant and not at all surprising scent.

Jack laughs, loud and sudden, and the sound leaves a content smile on Gavin’s face and a warm feeling curling about in his gut. “I’m glad you’re back, Gav.”

And that’s that – Jack’s off to edit an upcoming HUNT, and Gavin goes back to listening to Geoff and Ryan’s shitty dad jokes. For a moment, he wonders where Ryan is – Jack’s almost always the last person to the office, with the exceptions of Kdin and Caleb, and it’s strange for the gent to be so late. It’s nearing nine, now, and Gavin knows that if Ryan is any later, he’s going to cop an earful from Geoff.

Then he forgets about it, because Ryan is an adult and can take care of himself.

.//.

The day speeds past and Gavin barely takes notice of it. He’s missed this; even the meticulous duty of making sure the audio is synced with the video. It’s all very easy, and feels right in a way Gavin appreciates on a level he doesn’t quite fully understand. Ryan arrives at some point – too late for everyone’s tastes, and Geoff makes sure to tell him as much, but the day goes on as it always does, and Gavin finds that midday comes too soon.

As soon as the clock on his monitor clicks over to twelve o’clock, Gavin isn’t surprised to feel Geoff’s warm hands grasping at his shoulders. In the corner of his eye, he can just barely see Michael and Ray glancing over at his desk, each wearing inquisitive expressions, and there’s the slightest hint of worry in Michael’s, but he dismisses them both with a near-imperceptible shake of his head.

“Time to go home, Gav. Do you want me to walk you?”

Again, Gavin only shakes his head in response. Although walking home with only his crutches to keep him company sounds anything but inviting, he can’t bring himself to rely on Geoff any longer – his friend has already scarified so much to keep his British worker company, and Gavin may be a very, very selfish man, but he’s already robbed Geoff of his _goddamn family_. He’s a burden, and he doesn’t want to be any more.

Although Gavin isn’t looking at his monitor to see Geoff’s reflection, Gavin knows that the older man is casting him a terribly concealed worried look. He’s lived with Geoff on-and-off for almost eight years, and yes, he does think he knows Geoff just a little bit better than anyone else. “All right. If you need me, just call, okay?” They both know he won’t call, but it’s a nice sentiment all the same.

“Thanks, Geoffers.” Gavin’s voice sounds shaky, even to him, but he’s glad when nobody points it out. “I’ll see you lads tomorrow, all right?” Everyone bids their own goodbyes, and when Gavin struggles to his feet, Geoff gives him a quick but terribly tight hug, before going back to his own desk.

Gavin leaves the office with what little pride he has left, stumbling on crutches one length too large and feeling terribly alone. Barbara and Jon catch him on their way out and both give him a large hug, and in Barbara’s case, give him a hard kiss on the cheek. He’s missed them terribly, and Gavin is glad to see them. When they go back on their way, he almost wants to scream at the concerned stare he knows Barbara is utilizing, but he keeps him mouth shut and stumbles on out of the building.

“Gavin, wait!”

At Ryan’s voice, Gavin glances over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowed. The gent has been strangely quiet all throughout the day, and if anyone was going to follow him out of the office, Ryan had been, by far, his last choice.

He’s never been good at reading Ryan, though.

After a few moments of awkwardly staring, Ryan jogs up to Gavin, obviously nervous and so very, _very_ out of character. “Listen… Let me give you a ride home, kid. Those crutches look like a pain.”

Ryan’s very much right, and Gavin wants so badly to accept the offer – but even the thought of getting back in a car causes his airways to constrict, and he just _can’t_. He’d rather his arms stay chaffed for the entirety of forever than get back in a car. “No, don’t be silly, Ryan! It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

At least Ryan seems to understand, as where he would usually keep pressing until Gavin caves in, he lets the matter go. Gavin knows how wrong this whole situation is – he and Ryan don’t try to avoid the eggshells when speaking to each other, and now, Ryan seems too afraid to even step a foot out of line.

“You could walk me home though, if you’d like.” Gavin offers an olive branch, his smile forced but still very bright. “The company would be nice, and you look right pale, Ry. The fresh air would do you good.”

Ryan seems torn for a moment, before nodding his okay. Gavin’s smile feels a little more genuine, and Ryan even offers up his own little smile in return.

They walk on in silence, almost as if they’re walking a death march – it’s so unlike how they usually are, with stupid questions and joking insults. Gavin never spends too much time with Ryan outside work, but he’s sure this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. When they get to the junction leading down to his house, Gavin comes to an abrupt stop.

Ryan practically trips over his own feet in an effort to stop next to the lad, and when he rights himself, casts his companion a bewildered look. In response, Gavin sighs softly and lowers himself down on the bench next to the two. Ryan follows his lead, confusion and concern obvious in his gaze. “Gavin, what’s wrong? Are your arms hurting? I’m sure I could carry you the rest of the way. The house is just a few minutes up this street, right?”

“Yes, sure, whatever- that’s not why I stopped, Ryan. You’ve been acting weird since I first woke up. Have I done something?”

At Gavin’s words, Ryan’s gaze softens and he lets out a sigh of his own. Gavin only smiles sadly at him, unsure of what he could possibly say to soothe the older man’s obvious worries. When it comes down to it, Gavin knows that Ryan is the strong one of the two, the one to know which words will be the ones to make Gavin bleed, and the ones to make him smile; Gavin barely understands people, let alone the mysterious enigma that Ryan Haywood practically embodies.

“I was driving that fucking car, Gav.” Ryan starts, voice suddenly very hoarse and scarily vulnerable. Gavin feels his heart sink in response, and he suddenly understands _all too well_ what’s going through Ryan’s head. “I _heard_ you scream when that goddamn driver plowed into us. I looked over at you and I thought you were fucking _dead_ , Gavin. Miles had Ray and Kerry sorted, so I fucking pulled you out of the passenger seat – and shit, it was fucking _mangled_ – and I carried you to the fucking hospital because I couldn’t wait for the ambulance.” He pauses, and Gavin knows this is a cue, he knows this is where he should say something, but his throat is blocked with this fucking goddamn knot and he can’t speak _at all_. “It was my fault, Gavin. You could’ve died and Ray could’ve died and _God_ , it was all my fault.”

Gavin forces down the knot in his throat and shakes his head frantically, and Ryan stops in his miseries. “No, no, _Rye_ \- you don’t… you don’t get it, do you? It was a _drunk driver_ , Rye. You can’t control other drivers, that’s rule number one of traffic school or something. You did everything by the book, some bloody mong just went and got drunk at bloody midday! I bet if you asked Ray, Miles and Kerry they would say the _exact same_. And I’m okay, aren’t I? Here to annoy you another day! So let’s leave the pity party to the idiot with the absolutely minging crutches.”

Ryan looks so much like a child, vulnerable and hopeful at the same time, and it leaves Gavin feeling discontent. This isn’t his friend Ryan – in the right world, there is one thing that is wrong, and Gavin just wants it all to go away. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do, y’ donut.” Gavin smiles, and Ryan grins back. It looks almost like his Mad King grin, and that’s enough for Gavin to dismiss his worries over his friend. “Now… did _you_ mean it when you said you’d carry me home? My legs are bloody killing me, and my arms aren’t much better.”

It’s not a lie, really. He and Geoff always walk a stupidly slow pace, whereas Gavin and Ryan spent the entirety of the walk going rather quick, in an effort to ignore the awkward silence that had blanketed the two.

Instead of giving a verbal response, Ryan just stands up and scoops Gavin up into his arms as if the lads actually weighs nothing at all – at Gavin’s undignified snort, his grin only broadens; Gavin is surprised to find how much younger Ryan looks without the weight of his guilt bearing down on his shoulders, and is quietly very, _very_ glad that he managed to break Ryan’s oath of silence.

“Ready, Gav?”

Like he has a choice.

.//.

When Gavin next wakes up, Geoff is nudging his shoulder to bring him back to the world of the living.

He’s not sure when he fell asleep, nonetheless why he decided to do so on his couch, but it’s warm and comforting and Gavin is glad for it. Work had left him ridiculously tired, and his conversation with Ryan even more so – he’s not sure how long it’s been since Ryan had gently laid him down on the couch, but it’s been a while if Geoff is back home.

“Sorry, Gav. I’d let you sleep if this couch wasn’t so uncomfortable. Want to go to your room?” Gavin shakes his head, gingerly pushing himself up to a sitting position. Geoff supports him on the way up with a gentle hand on his shoulder blade, and Gavin cringes at the pain radiating from it. He still can’t remember the crash itself, and he wasn’t quite listening whenever his doctor repeated his injuries for him, so she stopped telling him and he stopped asking.

If it’s still hurting now, Gavin wonders how long until he’s fully recovered.

Once he’s upright, Geoff’s hand falls back to his side, and he watches Gavin with what is now a very familiar expression – somewhere between concern and exhaustion, and Gavin’s stomach churns at the sight of it. “You all right, bud? Did Ryan get you home okay?”

Gavin nods in response, gingerly rubbing at his eyes – he thinks he might have slept wrong, because literally _everything_ is hurting, but he tries not to let it show on his face. “All good, Geoffers. You can head home tonight, if you’d like. I should be fine, and I’m sure Griff is missing your dumb face.”

Geoff watches him for a moment with a different expression, now much more critical and alert; it’s there for a second before it’s gone, and Gavin supposes he’s imagined it. “Don’t be stupid, asshole. You’re either coming home with me or I’m staying here – it’s your choice.”

Not for the first time, Gavin finds himself wishing Geoff wasn’t such a stubborn prick.

It’s one of the many reasons they get on so well, though, and Gavin finds himself smiling at his friend, despite the way it pulls uncomfortably at his facial muscles. “Your house is a twenty minute walk, Geoff.”

Geoff shrugs. “I could get Griffon to drive us over.”

Ah, there it is. Much like when Ryan had offered a ride home, Gavin feels his airways closing up at the prospect of driving back to the Ramsey’s – as much as he trusts both Griffon and Geoff behind the wheel, the idea of being back in a car is absolutely terrifying, and he just _can’t_. Ryan had obeyed all the traffic laws, and still ended up getting plowed at an intersection; what could happen to him and the Ramsey’s? What if Gavin wasn’t the one who got the brunt of the collision? What if, _what if_ , what if—

“Gav!” Geoff sounds faraway, as if Gavin is underwater and Geoff is safe on the shore. He sounds _wrong, wrong, wrong_ and Gavin wonders if he ever really woke up at all. He remembers this feeling – this feeling of impending doom and _oh god i’m going to die_ and the deficiency of air, but he remembers it being Michael on the shore, screaming at some unknown entity he thinks might’ve been Jack and oh _God_ , what is going on? “Gavin, Gav- breathe with me, hey, hey, _come on_. Lad, you’re okay, we’re okay!”

(No, they’re not. If Gavin looks down there will be blood and if he looks to his left, Caleb’s dead eyes will be staring him down. They’re not _okay_ , and he remembers this is Ryan’s lie, not Geoff’s.)

Gavin claws at his throat, trying to get some _goddamn air_ to go in there, and he feels Geoff’s warm hands clasp around his own cold, shaking ones – he remembers being eighty years old and Michael’s warm twenty-seven year old hands, warm and comforting, clasping at his cold and shaking ones – bringing them back down, holding them tightly like he somewhat remembers Ray doing as Gavin slowly but surely bled to death.

He’s died before, and he thinks he’s going to die _now_.

It’s all familiar, but it’s all different. It’s all _Geoff_ , _Geoff_ , _Geoff_ and Gavin can’t stomach Geoff being there to watch him die – he knows that the rest have watched as Gavin’s given up on life, but _not_ Geoff, never _Geoff_.

“Gavin, you’re having a panic attack.” Geoff’s saying, still up on the shore and Gavin can feel himself going _down, down, down_ – it shouldn’t be Geoff up on the shore. It should be Jack, who lets him go without a fight because they’re not the _strong_ ones, and they never have been; it’s all so very wrong, but Gavin knows it’s supposed to be right. This isn’t a dream, he doesn’t think. “Breathe with me, come _on_ , I know you can.”

Geoff doesn’t understand. Gavin literally doesn’t think he _can_ breathe, but God, he’s trying. He wants to live _this_ life, not some far-off notion about following down the _right_ path and getting married to the first bird who showed any interest and having kids and having a well-paying job and dying because it’s all so monotonous and not at all the life he wants. Gavin tries to breathe with Geoff, but he can barely sense the other man’s breathing over the loud _thump thump thump_ of his own heart, and for God’s sake, he’s useless.

“Breathe deep and slow, Gav. Count down from one hundred. You can do it, you know you can.”

 _100, 99, 98_ …

.//.

 _3, 2, 1_.

Gavin blinks, burrowing down further into the couch. He’s sweaty and shaking, and there’s a part of him that thinks he’s going to throw up – the man in front of him looks as pale as a sheet, eyes too worried for even a thirty nine year old to utilize. The look doesn’t suit Geoff; ages him older than Gavin’s ever seen him, even when the stress of working at a YouTube-based company gets too much for the usually relaxed man to handle.

Geoff doesn’t let go of his hands, and instead, squeezes them harder. “You back with me, asshole?”

( _Hey asshole. You trying to die on me?_   The memory, much to Gavin’s disdain, doesn’t fit in anywhere and he thinks he’s going to explode with all the memories he has of lives he couldn’t have possibly lived.)

Instead of voicing his frustration, Gavin nods, relaxing but still on alert. He knows he’s never had a panic attack, but he remembers having one barely, with Ryan, Geoff and Ray dead and Jack yelling in his ear and Michael screaming back in frustration. It doesn’t _fit_ , goddammit, and Gavin hates it all. “Yeah, I… I think so. Sorry, Geoff.”

“It should be me doing the apologizing, you little shit.” There’s no malice in it, and when Gavin finally looks back to Geoff, the man is wearing a smile very similar to the one Ray had utilized upon startling Gavin that morning, somewhere between sheepish and apologetic. “I should’ve realized why you never want to come with me when I go driving somewhere. I’m sorry, Gavin.”

Gavin squints at the words, suddenly feeling a now-very familiar guilt. “It’s not your fault, for God’s sake! It’s _mine_ , remember? I’m the one who had the goddamn panic attack.” Geoff’s smile fades at that, replaced by a frown. Gavin knows exactly what he’s going to say, so he shakes his head to halt the oncoming word vomit of his former housemate. “People in comas… they dream, don’t they?”

“Um.” Gavin is immediately reminded that Geoff is rarely eloquent in the best of situations. “Yeah. Why? Do you… did you dream, Gav?”

Gavin shrugs, his shoulders still tender and the action itself shaky and unsure. “I think so. I have all these memories that I don’t really understand. They just don’t… _fit_ , you know? It’s like I just made them all up. Like, I remember me and Ray actually running around in our X-Ray and Vav outfits, saving Austin and I remember you and Ryan as the Corpirate and Mad King… and then there’s this whole _heist_ that I remember, Geoff. I remember ten years of working with Rooster Teeth as a criminal gang and the Fake AH Crew was an _actual_ thing. I remember Ray killing you and Ray dying trying to protect me and Michael and I just— I don’t _understand_ , Geoff. It all feels so real, just like this, and I don’t know how to tell that I’m not still bloody dreaming!”

Geoff’s grip tightens once again, and Gavin stops dead in his rant. Geoff looks torn, confused and just _tired_ , and Gavin knows he’s the cause of all of this and the guilt threatens to burn him alive. “If my word means anything, Gavvo, and I’m not sure if it does – I can promise you that we’re awake. You’re awake, Gavin. This is real, okay?”

Gavin breathes deeply, bright green eyes flickering over Geoff’s face in search for a tell that the gent is lying. Geoff offers up none, and Gavin thinks he might be telling the truth. “… Okay.”

* * *

 _some things take root_  
_in the brain and just don't_  
_let go_  
– Slow Dance, Tim Seibles

**Author's Note:**

>  **section one** ( _how about this_...)  
>  i. in this section, lindsay assumes a similar role to that of hilda in the webshow. she's more emotionally avaliable to the boys, if anything.  
> ii. ray and gavin live together (?? not sure if this is accurate to the webshow).  
> iii. unlike their online counterparts, x-ray and vav are actually born with their powers. it's not overly addressed, but hey, that's a thing.  
> iv. apologies that it's short, especially compared to the rest. i'll be re-visiting x-ray and vav at a later date.  
> v. title comes from tumblr user **starredsoul**! the poem is called suggestions, i suggest you go check out all their stuff! it's amazing, tbh.
> 
>  **section two** ( _i will have you_...)  
>  i. obviously GTA au, and random joel heyman cameo because i was in a joel mood apparently.  
> ii. this section takes place over 10 years, starting with gavin at 17 and following through to 27.  
> iii. ALSO DAN IS INVOLVED BC BB DAN GRUCHY DESERVES A SHOUTOUT.  
> iv. shout out to team trial and error for being difficult as fuck to make the focus of this section. little shits.  
> v. title comes from tumblr user **exaltedmarching**!
> 
>  **section three** ( _and all i know of silence is that_...)  
>  i. EYO MATT JEREMY AND CALEB CAMEOS BC SUGAR CINNAMON ROLLS  
> ii. shoutout to **inkskinned** over on tumblr for the title.  
>  iii. i am waiting for the day a game based on an Industrial Apocalypse is announced. until then, have this.
> 
>  **section four** ( _you should've seen the way_...)  
>  i. the title relates to michael through all three sections. i'm a bitch for pining!michael.  
> ii. this is the only outwardly romantic section of the whole piece, and i do apologize that it skims over it. i didn't want michael and gavin to take over the piece, and it is so very easy to go on about these two dumb bois.  
> iii. throughout the entire one shot, gav has been in an ASC ( _altered state of consciousness_ ). the stability of this ASC is deteriorating, which may or may not explain the three separate AUS co-existing in the same section of this piece.  
> iv. monty was always planned to be gavin's companion, and i do apologize if anyone finds his role in this offensive. i couldn't think of another rooster teeth employee who fit the role i wanted as gavin's former companion before michael quite as well as monty. and to be honest, i feel as if monty would've made a fantastic companion for any of the doctors (particularly the ninth doctor). shout out to eccleston.  
> v. shout out to **the retribution of mara dyer** for the title. i saw it on use of a rose/ninth doctor gifset and cried a lot.  
>  vi. i may revisit the mavin doctor who au at a later time.
> 
>  **section five** ( _my heart is so_...)  
>  i. if it comes off as disjointed, i apologize. i wrote a third on my home laptop, a third at school on a poorly maintained netbook, and a third on my very shitty ipod. i tried to remedy this as much as possible, but... yeah.  
> ii. this is the very shitty answer to geovin over the course of the one shot. don't worry, i'm definitely going to be revisiting geovin in another one-shot / maybe a three-shot (??).  
> iii. this section is just very confused, as it's meant to reflect gavin's mental state. he's got memories from his dreams that don't feel like dreams and as you can imagine, it just leaves the lad's mental state a shambles.  
> iv. apologies if the panic attack isn't accurate / portrayed well. i've had a few myself but it's difficult to do one justice through words alone.  
> v. meg and gavin broke up shortly prior to his accident. it's a choice i found difficult to make, as i am quite biased _against_ meg. i'm slowly warming up to her, in no small part due to the jones squared/turnfree ot4, but i felt as if i wouldn't be able to portray her either fairly or correctly. shout out to meg turney! (this note was added in a later edit, so don't stress if you come back and find a few footnotes you didn't see before.)  
>  vi. thanks to sharon dogar's **annexed** for the title.
> 
> * * *
> 
> i may write two follow-up's to this. one following geoff/ray/jack/michael/ryan whilst gavin's in his coma, and the other a team lads car trip out for lunch where michael and ray refuse to walk all the fucking way to wotaburger, christ. then gavin!angst. so much gavin!angst and apologetic!raychael. i'm a bitch for mayvin tbh. let me know if you'd be interested!  
> also thanks for sticking with me through this? you're insane? cheers, big ears!  
>  **this is dedicated to monty oum <3**.
> 
> ALSO SHOUT OUT TO ARIADNE AGAIN FOR REMINDING ME. the title comes from the one, the only, BELLAMY BLAKE OF THE 100 FAME!!! cheers, asshole.


End file.
